The invention relates to a press belt made from an elastomer material and forming a closed loop, the belt having an inner surface and an outer surface and three layers of reinforcement yarns arranged inside the elastomer material, an innermost yarn layer closest to the inner surface being formed by longitudinal and transversely adjacent reinforcement yarns of the press belt, and a middle yarn layer being formed by transverse longitudinally adjacent reinforcement yarns of the press belt.
Press belts are employed in various presses associated with papermaking, particularly in shoe-type presses between the paper machine fabric and the shoe press or the roll in order to constitute a surface for lengthening the press section of the press.
Known press belts typically comprise a belt containing an elastomer material, such as polyurethane or rubber, the inside of the belt comprising a supporting structure composed of yarns. The supporting structure may be a fabric or composed of separate yarn layers superimposed transversely relative to each other. Such solutions are known from U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,238,287, 5,134,010 and 5,238,537, and Japanese patent 0,756,651, for example.
When in use, press felts are subjected to quite hard stresses because of both the compression and particularly the bending that takes place in different directions in the press section. With time, these stresses may cause cracks in the actual belt material, which gradually cause the belt to be damaged unusable. When belts are used, sometimes randomly generated paper accumulations cause sudden extensive deformation forces when passing through the press, which may break or damage the press belt.